By Poloko Mokhele
The intense fight between the Transformation Resource Centre (TRC) staff and management seems to be far from over as the two parties this week were at locker heads.
Now, the former staff members have joined the fray.
In early February, TRC staff wrote a scathing letter to the board of directors accusing the executive director, Tsikoane Peshoane of an array of issues including unfair labour practices and calling for his removal from office with immediate effect.
The board immediately sent all staff members, including Peshoane, on forced leave “in order to pave way for an internal investigation.” The investigations were headed by Equity Forensics and Association of Lesotho Employers and Business.
In their six paged letter dated February 1 2022 seen by theReporter, the staff stated: “it is with great sadness that we, the TRC staff write this letter to the board, requesting intervention on the conduct of the executive director which is threatening the organisation’s welfare in general and that of the staff in particular.”
They observed that that the executive director used to be accountable to the staff and allowed virtual platforms for expression of concern and listened.
“The difference however came with his approach at the start of 2021 after numerously telling the staff unprovoked, that he was the best director the organisation ever had and that he had raised the most money, developing an entitlement of sorts and no longer saw the true value of his team,” they claimed in the letter.
The sixteen staff members indicated that the executive director has taken upon himself to violate the contractual obligations of the organisation, despite the human resource policy that states the issues of performance appraisal which then can determine the promotion or demotion of an employee at TRC.
They accused the executive director of refusing to grant leave days to employees making remarks that TRC work is very important than a leave, also saying they were surprised that every year the executive director changes the organisation structure which is normally used to demote or promote others in the manner he pleases.
The staff reminded the board that the policies in place at TRC ought to be sufficient to ensure the organisation’s welfare, indicating that the finance department is also staffed with competent officers who at various times, in various ways have expressed concern over the kind of expenditure incurred.
Peshoane was also accused of misusing organisational assets like the motor vehicle for his personal reasons, a move which the press statement on report findings indicated that: “the investigations have reviewed terms of engagement for the executive director and noted that he is entitled to petrol allowance of M3000 and personal use of the vehicle.”
The board of directors’ report of findings statement issued by the office of deputy chairperson, Tŝepo Mokuku squashed all the accusations indicating that investigations into staff grievances had been concluded and that the certain grievances were misconstrued, others unfounded, while the rest though legitimate were not the doing of the executive director.
“The investigation reveals no wrongdoing by the executive director. What we observe is that there was a poor judgement on his part occasioned by lack of funds. The organisational structure was influenced by programming considerations and properly approved and communicated to the staff. However, TRC should seek more engagement with staff on position reconfiguration to ensure they appreciate the business reasons for the changes.”
On the issue of leave days, the report stated that each organisation is guided by its policy and the labour law states that an employee cannot carry over days in excess of 18 days.
“It allows the employer the number of days which can be carried over. There is therefore no misconduct in the manner in which the executive director treated the issue of leave days,” the report said.
The staff responded to the report indicating that the way the investigation was done leaves a lot to be desired.
“Firstly, the consultants used a rather unclear manner of selection of personnel for interviews regarding the outlined grievances. The understanding was that there would be an interview from both consultants informed by their scope of work and relevance to the grievances put forth in the letter.
“It was also expected that a more representative sample would be identified and that all identified employees to be interviewed would go through the entire process, yet these occurred in a deeply unsettling manner,” the staff said.
The staff members argued that despite the questionable manner in which the investigations were conducted the investigators “were bold enough to see it fit to provide findings, nonetheless. This comes after some staff members who were previously identified to be interviewed were unceremoniously cancelled without any explanation and others, who had already been interviewed by one consultant, were not engaged by the other.”
They further highlighted that the report by the office of the deputy chairperson is misleading as it seeks to remove liability from Peshoane, “as he as the executive director ought to be the overseer of all TRC operations therefore cannot plead ignorance on any misdoings at the organisation.”
Now, the former TRC employees also joined the fight this week releasing a solidarity statement.
“We are concerned former Transformation Resource Centre (TRC) employees who are, at the same time direct victims of TRC executive director’s mismanagement of the organisation, hence our interest in this matter.
“We are not surprised as these damning internal governance challenges can be traced back to a period when Mr. Peshoane was appointment as TRC Director. The appointment which was conducted in a dubious manner by TRC board to say the least,” the former employees said.
They stated that the period saw Peshoane eliminating from the organisation all employees with higher qualifications than him, embarking “on the so called restructuring” which resulted in changing of departments and requirements.
The former employees then called on the board of directors to: “immediately suspend TRC executive director to ensure that investigations against him run smoothly as he is prone to exert his influence over them thus compromising the outcome of investigations. Lastly, the board must desist from making misleading statements to the public and allow the investigations to run its cause.”
“We further call upon the investigators to conduct probe in a professional manner by ensuring that they do not allow the board, director or any concerned party to influence the outcome of the investigation,” they said.
